Moonless Night
by toledo girl
Summary: His entire world fell apart before him, and now the only thing he had left were the events of the past night. Although, as human beings we tend to block out anything painful, and at times, when painful enough we create new, false memories to replace them.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: My Story

Something was missing, that was the one thing that he was sure about as he opened his eyes to the sunlit filled room. The yellowish glow that covered everything, seemed brighter, happier that day for some reason.

The last few days had been filled with sleeplessness and arguing within himself. Ever since Kutner had killed himself, the doubt had begun to surface and even if he was in denial of the fact, it scared him. The moment that he had heard about Kutner's death, he had known that he had missed something that he should have seen, and from the moment that he had seen Amber, he knew he had lost him mind. Even if he was mentally fine, there would still be apart of him that would forever doubt himself.

He slowly sat up and looked around the room. A slight grin came across his face as he realized that Amber was no where to be seen. It had worked.

Making his way into the bathroom, he tried to think of what could have happened the night before. There must have been something different. There had to be a reason as to why he had felt the way that he did waking up. Could it have just simply been that he had actually been able to sleep? No, there was nothing to describe the calm fulfilling, almost…that one little word that he had never believed in using. Was he, happy? Either way, it was impossible for him to even think that just sleep could bring about this feeling.

Stepping into the bathroom he stopped and stared down to the sink. There it was, the reminder of everything that had happened the night before. Before him sat one little, lonely tube of lipstick. To many people, this would mean nothing, but to him, this was a reminder. He gently took the tube within his hand and carefully studied it as his grin slightly grew. That was when he looked up in the mirror and saw the lipstick smeared on his face.

Now he remembered everything. He remembered going to Cuddy for help, he remembered her helping him to detox, how she watched him so he wouldn't take another pill, how she held his hand…how she was there for him.

There his was, and here was his story. Standing in the mirror, staring back at him was the man who had overcome his guilt, the man who had gotten over his addiction and the man who now had the woman he had wanted for so long. This was Gregory House, and this was his story.

**I know that you were probably expecting a sequel to Gabrielle, but don't worry, I'll have one soon. This was just something random that I thought about. Let me know what you think. **


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Guilty

The hospital was busy as usual as House limped through the lobby. Things were all the same as they had been last week, last month, maybe even last year. The only thing that had really changed was his mood. Right now all he wanted to do was go and see Cuddy. He didn't care if he would chase her away or start anything awkward or anything at all. Right now he didn't care if they even just stood there and stared at each other, all he wanted to do was see her again.

His heart suddenly dropped. Standing before her office, he could see the darkened, empty room. She wasn't there. "Probably another sick day for the kid," he mumbled to himself as he turned and left.

There was bound to be a case waiting for him in his office, so he figured once he got up there and got that out of the way, that he could go and talk to Wilson and then go back and see if Cuddy was there or not. If she wasn't, there was the chance that she was avoiding him and that was something he didn't want to think about at the moment. Although, it was Cuddy, it wasn't like he was expecting her to wait for him at the door and rush into his arms.

House stepped onto the elevator, and was about to press the number for his floor when mother and her grumpy little boy walked on. Usually, he would have tried to stop them from coming on, but today it really didn't even matter. He didn't even really pay any attention to them, instead he stared off into space. All of his thoughts were focused on how to be able to finally talk to Cuddy. The last thing that he wanted to do was to just pretend like last night ever happened.

A quick sharp pain in his right thigh brought him out of his deep thought. "Kevin! Apologize to that man right now!" he heard the woman snap. His hand automatically reaching down to rub the now sore scar, he looked over at the young boy. He figure that the kid must have tried to steal something from the mother or something like that and while fighting his fist flew back and hit his leg.

The little boy turned to him with his head down to floor in shame. "I'm sorry mister."

"It's alright," he said going back into a deep thought. He could hear the mother ask something about leg, and whether or not he had hit the bad one. He simply and quickly reassured her that it was okay and then turned all of his attention down to his leg. There was something that struck him, a sudden guilt that had hit him when his leg hurt.

Once on his floor, he got out and made his way to his office. He told everyone about the night he had and received a case on a man with an uncontrollable left side. It was an interesting case none the less, but the main concern currently circling his head was the guilt he had felt in the elevator. Something was wrong there, it reminded him of the day before from when he had thought he saw guilt in the boy, when there was none.

His next stop was to go talk to Wilson, but he couldn't. His mind was set on talking to Cuddy and he wasn't able to wait any longer. He had made his way down to her office and stood before the same old dark room. She still wasn't there. He asked a couple of people working the clinic, but they all told him the same thing, she wasn't there.

That was when the feeling had returned. The same guilt that had hit him in the elevator, except this time it was more of an overwhelming feeling. Of course, he rationalized to himself that he had fake guilt before and there was the fact that he had that odd feeling earlier, so why not try and pin it to something? This was the only situation that was different from every other day, so why not?

His next attempt to talk to her was to call her. That also had failed. Both her home phone and cell phone. Failed.

"Damn it," he softly cussed to himself as he hung up his phone and dropped his arm to his side. He leaned his head back against the wall of the empty locker room. The one thing that he had wanted, the one thing that he had managed to have for a small amount of time, was slowly leaving him. There had to be a way to get a hold of her. Closing his eyes, he tried to think about whether or not she had said anything to him the night before. Maybe if she was going to take a personal day, or if she was going to be busy, just anything that would explain why she wasn't there.

It was starting to strike him as odd. On most days, well, actually, any other day, he would have just shrugged it off. He would have just left it at the remark about spending the day with her daughter and went on with his day. Today was different. There was something overall, very wrong with the situation, and he was starting to realize it. The guilt that he had felt in the elevator was causing him to overlook all the obvious reasons as to why she could be gone. There was the possibility that he had worn her out and she was asleep, well, he would very much love to think that. There was the chance either she or Rachel was sick, that she wanted a day with her daughter, that one of her relatives came in or something. Instead of all of this, he was thinking that there was something wrong, as if she had gotten in an accident or something.

Without realizing it, he had drifted off to sleep.

_(The room was dark with the exception of the small amount of light shining in from another room. The sound of yelling could be heard, but there was no way to be sure of who it was, or what it was saying. Suddenly, there was a bright light that quickly flashed across the carpeted floor, and then, as quickly as it appeared, it went away. _

_The next sound was a thrashing sound as he watched the blurred shadows on the floor. He was about to look up to try and see the two people, but his eye was caught by the blood that was dripping on the carpet before him)_

He jolted out of his dream and looked around the room. Without even stopping to think, he got up and headed to over to Cuddy's house.

He drove on his motorcycle. Images from the dream were still filling his head and blocking out any other thoughts. The more that he thought about them, the more guilty he began to feel. There was no denying that there was something wrong, he only wished that it wasn't something that he couldn't fix.

Pulling up into the driveway, he noticed that her car was missing. That was something that he hated to see at the moment, but of course, there was the closed garage. Most people did park their cars in there. He then made his way to the door, and found the key where she had always kept it hidden under the stone. "Cuddy!" he called out as he stepped in. There was no answer.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Follow the Trail

House went through the entire house. There was no sign of either Cuddy or Rachel. Rachel he figured was easily with someone else, but he was starting to get worried about Cuddy. There was no way that someone could just disappear that quickly. Nothing was making any sense around him.

Sighing, he sat down on the floor in the hallway. Leaning his head back against the wall, he felt around in his pocket for the tube of lipstick. There was a strange urge for him to pull out the tube and study it. He didn't understand it, but a few minutes after he had been playing with it in his fingers, he felt better. It was as if the stress had been lifted from him and his entire body went numb. The oddly calming effect allowed him to think more clearly, something he had not done all day.

Even if he was thinking clearly, there was still no explanation as to what was going on. The entire day had felt like some sort of fogged over dream. Reality was not making sense to him anymore, and that fact was starting to scare him. To him, the second that reality was lost, was the second that he would loose everything. His life was based upon logic and reason, and if reality had stopped making sense, all the logic and reason would go out the window, leaving him with nothing.

Carefully using his cane, House lifted himself up and limped to the door. There was nothing here that could help him, yet he had felt that he needed to stop and turn back to look over the area, as if he were double checking. Still getting nothing, he quietly left the place.

There was nothing left to do so he had decided to go back to his apartment. He knew that he probably should go back to work, but really, who was going to get him in trouble? Besides, he was starting to doubt himself, and there was no way that he could go work on a patient if he felt he was wrong.

He was about to get on his bike and leave, but he had heard the familiar ringtone go off and answered it. "What did you find?" he quickly asked. The case suddenly felt secondary to him, and all he wanted to do was go home and think about what could have happened between last night and that morning. He listened as the team went over a few test results and then told them that he would be there later on. It was obvious to him that he wasn't thinking clearly, so there was no way that he was about to throw out diseases. As hard as it was to admit, he would have felt guilty if he were to cause a patient to die of something that was easily fixable. "Just make sure to keep him stable and make sure that everything's fine. I'll be there later on to fix whatever mistakes you morons made." Usually he would have had something much more clever to say, but he didn't want to put the thought into it. All he wanted to do was get back to his apartment, so, without any further thought, he hopped on his motorcycle and took off.

Finally back at his place, he threw open the door and limped into the place. He carelessly tossed his jacket over the couch and then went and plopped down on it. Right now he needed to just relax, to try and somehow block everything out that had happened earlier that day. He closed his eyes and tried to forget everything, but found himself going over the events instead.

Even his own thoughts were beginning to become mixed and incoherent. The jumbled images from his dream had begun to fill his head. He could see the knife and the blood dripping from it. He could hear the drops hitting the floor and making a small splash as they joined within the puddle that was already formed. The splashing becoming increasingly louder and more distinct. With every red splatter, the guilt grew within him. Suddenly, he heard the person shriek and his flew open.

Trying desperately to catch his breath, he sat up. He could feel his own heart beating in his chest. Whatever images that were going through his head obviously meant a great deal to him, and considering what they were, they were starting to scare him.

Tilting his head back, he closed his eyes for a moment. He knew that trying to calm himself down was useless, but he remembered how he had felt after he had pulled out the tube of lipstick from earlier and he decided to try that again. There was certainly nothing to lose from it. Pulling the small tube out of his pocket, he closely studied it as he played with it in his hands. As soon as he felt calmed, he placed it gently back into his pocket. He paused. As soon as he had looked down towards his pocket, he could see small red dots on the carpet. There seemed to be a trail of them. His eyes slowly followed them over to the wall where in front, he saw the dried puddle which instantly lead him back to the mental image of the blood dripping off the knife into the puddle below. Above it, on the wall there was a handprint that had smeared. As he carefully stared at it, he could hear the same shriek again. This time while hearing the shriek, he could see the bloodied hand desperately trying to use the wall as support.

Not knowing what else to do, House reached over and grabbed his cell phone off the table. "Wilson, you'd better get over here. I think I'm hallucinating," he said while staring at the blood stains. The most he could hear was Wilson saying that he would be right over and then he hung up.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Revelations

House just stared at the blood that had stained his living room. Each step that he had taken closer to it, there was a chill that crept down his spine. While waiting for Wilson, he went around the apartment searching for other places where he saw blood. There seemed to be little droplets that had scattered all about, but there was another main stain over at the door. The handprint had smeared down the wall right besides the entrance way.

The doorknob turned, and caused House to jump back. It was Wilson. "Sorry," he said. "Thought you were expecting me." He carefully closed the door behind him and paused as soon as he saw the blood. Slowly, he turned back to House and stared to him.

There was something in his eyes that greatly disturbed House, an apologetic look of some sorts. Wilson knew something that he didn't and instead of annoying him, it scared him. This was his own home and someone else knew more about what had happened there than he did. Then again, was this all just another hallucination? Could it be that Wilson was not really there and that he was thinking that Wilson would see the blood? That in itself was more disturbing than anything he had thought about all day. "You see it don't you?" The answer was easy to figure out, but it was the only thing he could think to say at the moment.

Wilson nodded and then led House over more towards the living room. He sighed and then grabbed his shoulders as he looked him straight in the eyes. "Do you remember anything about last night?"

House looked around. There could have been something that might jog his memory, but he had no such luck. Nothing. He decided to just tell Wilson everything that he could remember from what had happened. "Cuddy came over and we slept together."

"I see," Wilson said in deep thought. He was stunned and in disbelief as he looked down towards the floor and sighed. "House," he said as he looked back up to him with concern, "you'd better go get your things and come with me."

The idea made him nervous, but there was no way that he could say he was surprised. This was something that he had been preparing himself for. Without even responding, he went to his dark bedroom and stood in the doorway. His glazed over eyes looked over the entire place, for he knew he wouldn't see it again in a very long time, if he ever got to see it again.

He started to limp towards the bed, but stepped on something. "Damn it," he sharply cussed to himself. About to bend down and pick up the object, he froze. His eyes fell upon the blood covered knife and froze there. Automatically, the images of the blood dripping off the knife, and the screaming lady flooded his head. Wait, how had known it was a lady? That was something new, but it didn't matter at the moment.

Tightly, he closed his eyes and then went on to pack his things. The knife could easily be seen out of the corner of his eye, but he had chosen to ignore it. The knife was becoming harder to just leave there. Instead of getting himself all worked up, he decided to pull the tube of lipstick out of his pocket. He searched around for a minute, but didn't feel a tube, instead, he felt a...a pill bottle. His hand started to nervously shake as he grasped onto the small container. Still shaking, he pulled his clenched fist out of his pocket and held it up to his face, where, with hesitation, he slowly opened up his hand.

There it was, his vicodin bottle. Now being able to say anything, he simply dropped it. His eyes were drawn to the knife. That was when it had all come back to him.

_House stood there, in the darkened room. His face twisted with pain as his leg throbbed. One hand on his thigh and the other behind his back. Cuddy stood before him with a pitiful expression. The room might have been dark, but the glow from the kitchen washed over the left side of her face and gave it an orangish tint. _

"_Cuddy," he demanded as his grip on the knife tightened. "Give me the pills."_

_Cuddy slightly smiled. "House, you're going to be fine. Trust me, in a few days you'll be thankful that you got this all done and over with." Most times he would find her smile to be reassuring, but at that particular moment, he found it annoying. _

"_How the hell should you know? You by any chance go through this before?" he snapped. _

_Cuddy sighed. "Really, you're not even yourself at the moment. I mean look at you," she said. _

"_Look at me!" he yelled. "Look at me! How about look at you!? You're little miss perfect telling me how bad this stuff is. If its so damn bad than why did it get me through the day? And if its so damn bad, why do you even care? You just here making sure that one of your best employees doesn't ruin the image of your hospital?" _

_The words hurt her, but she knew that he wasn't himself. She knew that she couldn't take everything that he said right now. "That's all you think is it?" she asked holding back a few tears. "House, I'm here because you asked me to come here, and I put up with you because I don't mind it." She wanted to wait a minute before she started saying what she needed to say to him. "Now, I know that you're in pain, but that's really just too bad. No one told you to take all those pills. If you really want to get over this, you'll get through the night."_

_House watched her for a minute. "I wouldn't be taking all those pills if you wouldn't have ruined my leg. I wanted to give it a chance, but the second I was out, you decided to operate. Maybe now you should take a turn and see how it feels."_

_Cuddy got a look of suspicion on her face. "House?" The look in his eyes was enough to scare the hell out of anyone. His eyes were ominous and his face determined. His stare was set on her leg. He started limping towards her and stopped right before her. With his one hand, he pushed her against the wall and started kissing her. She would have pushed back and resisted, but a part of her liked it, she liked his lips against hers. It was also hard to say no when it kept him from needing pills, just as long as this didn't go too far. Then, all the sudden she felt and extreme sharp pain in her thigh. House backed away with the knife in his hand, watching her as she shrieked at the stab wound in her leg. _

_Cuddy grabbed her leg as she went down to the ground. There was nothing that she could say, the whole situation was unbelievable to her. She took her bloodied hand and tried to use the wall to get back on her feet. Looking back at House, she desperately wanted to ask why, but didn't feel like provoking him to do any further damage. Instead, she just carefully made her way to the door and left. _

House nervously looked up at Wilson. That was the moment that his entire world had fallen apart before him. "I stabbed her," he muttered. It had all sunk in. The guilt, the nervousness, it all made sense to him now. The reason that he felt he had to talk to Cuddy so badly. The guilt grew within him and made him more and more anxious to know how she was doing.

Wilson just sighed. He knew that House had lost it, so he really couldn't yell at him for doing something that he had no memory of doing. "Your things still packed?"

House nodded, but he really wasn't paying any attention to Wilson at the moment. "Where's Cuddy at?" That was his main concern at the moment.

"She's in the hospital, but I don't think," he was then cut off by House.

"I want to go see her before I leave." It was more of a demand than anything.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Goodbye

_Years go by and I'm here still waiting Withering where some snowman was  
Mirror mirror where's the crystal palace  
But I only can see myself  
Skating around the truth who I am  
But I know that the ice is getting thin_

Cause things are gonna change so fast  
All the white horses are still in bed  
I tell you that I'll always want you near  
You say that things change my dear

_ - Winter by Tori Amos_

Wilson had done as House had requested. He had to see Cuddy one more time, one last time. House stood outside the room and looked in on her as she lay there in the hospital bed. There was nothing that was life threatening, but the simply fact that he had hurt someone that he deep down cared about, hurt him more than anything.

Sighing, he had to do what he came here to do, say goodbye to Cuddy and apologize. This was the only way that things could ever work out for him. He would go get himself off of the Vicodin and start out somewhere else, somewhere new, somewhere where he wouldn't have to be afraid of hurting someone that actually meant something to him.

The door opened and he limped quietly into the room. The room was silent as Cuddy slept. This was not the situation that he had wanted to remember, but he loved how she looked when she was asleep. He loved the way that her ebony curls would scatter, how relaxed and carefree her expression was, the slight smile that she had when ever she was dreaming about something that was good. He wanted more than anything to let her continue to sleep, but if he wanted to say goodbye to her, he had to wake her. "Lisa?" he asked.

Her eyes fluttered as her head turned. It took her a minute, but she furrowed her brow at the sight. "House?" she asked. Her voice was somewhat weak, and there seemed to be something missing from her eyes, but he couldn't quite figure out what it was at the moment.

"I'm sorry," he said emotionlessly. His eyes were focused on her, searching for any forgiveness that she could offer to ease his guilt. "I didn't even remember what I had done until a little bit ago. I must have been hallucinating or something." He paused for a minute to see how she was taking all of this. Her eyes were beginning to shine with the tears that she was getting ready to cry, most likely as soon as he left.

"I know you weren't yourself that night," she said. Her voice was strained, as if about to cry. "There was no permanent damage caused, I just needed some blood and they just want to watch me for a little bit. I'm going home tonight."

He could through her attempts to calm him. It was evident that she had no intention of making the situation worse.

"After everything gets better, things will go back to normal here." 

That was the thing, there was no way of going back to the way things were. He had to go get himself cleaned out and he had to make changes so that he would not go back to that. "There's this mental hospital, Mayfield I think, Wilson's taking me there as soon as I leave here."

Cuddy slightly smiled, he took it as a congratulations for doing something. "I'm proud of you, you're finally taking steps on something that you need to get control over," she said.

Next, he had to tell her that he was leaving. It sounded somewhat vain in his head to be wondering how mad she would be at him or how sad she would be over his leaving, but he knew that she wouldn't want him to. She was willing to forgive him for last night, there had to be something there, something more than just the boss employee relationship. "Things are going to be different when I finish up there."

Cuddy looked to him with understanding. "It was stupid of me to say that things would be back to normal, but you know that it'll all be for the better." She stopped and sighed. "You make it sound as if things are only going to go downhill from here."

"Wilson isn't going to be picking me up when I'm done, I will be taking a bus." he said. House studied her face, and could see that she was confused by what he was saying, which could only be expected when someone beat around what they had to say. "After I'm done, I'm moving away from here. I'm going to see if there are any openings in any other hospitals anywhere else, and I'm going to just completely start over."

Here was an uncomfortable silence in the room. Those tears that he had spotted earlier in Cuddy's eyes had now started to fall. "Greg," he noted the use of his first name. He knew that she wanted t o tell him to stay, but didn't want to go against his wishes. "If this about last night," she started.

House just shook his head and started for the door. He knew Cuddy didn't want him to leave, but this had to be done. Instead of just leaving her like that, he turned and went over and gently kissed her. Their lips pressed against each other passionately, and they each let each taste enter their mouths, for this was their last kiss. She knew that he was stubborn and he knew what he had to do. "Goodbye," he said once he had pulled away from her.

As he went back to the door, he did not look back to see her face, but he could feel her eyes watching him. "Just tell me one thing, why are you completely leaving everything?" Cuddy asked from behind him.

House stopped as he was about to reach for the door. On his lips, her taste still lingered. Sighing, he turned and looked to her without any expression. This was one of his times where he was going to allow himself to be vulnerable, and to say whatever he had felt at the moment. She deserved it. "Sometimes when you love someone enough, you have to realize that it is better for them if you leave and let them go." With that, he quickly left the room. There was no doubt that there were tears, and he knew that she would miss him, and that he would miss her, but he felt that it was better this way. "And I love you too much to pull you down with me every time I fall," he said and then walked down the hall to the elevator to finally leave and go start over.

The End


End file.
